Identity Design Action is a participatory design platform that aims to enhance small business’s awareness of major rezoning plans, and empower them with communication tools to unite and be heard.
Building access, awareness and voice.
From 2015-2016, I conceived, obtained funding, and led this project for the New York chapter of AIGA (the nation’s leading professional association of graphic designers) in partnership with the Local Development Corporation of East New York, a nonprofit that provides social and professional development services to minorities and small businesses.
We hired WeShouldDoItAll to create a coherent advocacy campaign, with a memorable neighborhood-wide visual identity and motto. Aside from its impactful motto, the multi-faceted campaign included the wild distribution of posters and flyers placarded all over East New York streets, and hand-distributed to a selection of business ambassadors, as well as digital tools, such as a user-friendly website and SMS service that automatically alerted businesses about upcoming free training classes and events.
Additionally our team of service designers, 3x3 Design, co-led a series of workshops to empower the neighborhood’s small owners to become more resilient in time of change and start imagining a merchants alliance. To further its urban impact the campaign was completed with one 200-foot long banner installed in the Industrial Business Zone honoring local manufacturers, and more posters wheat-pasted on a 300-foot long construction fence of a future medical facility, located at the high traffic thoroughfare of Pennsylvania Avenue.
We involved small business owners, youth and residents in the co-creation of these communications systems. The multi-platform advocacy campaign entitled “East New York. We Mean Business, Unite to Stay” ended up being used by several local organizations, resident-activists, and small business owners and put the neighborhood on the radar of city government. The project enabled residents to voice their needs for the place they wanted to build in the future. And the Local Development Corporation of East New York obtained a $300,000 grant from the City the following year!
Identity Design Action
Action-research, business empowerment and community engagement
Learn more about IDeA:ENY
download the final case study, written and designed by 3x3 Design
discover the exhibition at Industry City and talk at Parsons, May 2016
“This project gave us proof of the vibrancy of East New York’s ‘mom and pop’ shops. The campaign put a finger on the small business pulse, and it gave the businesses a visual presence for the local politicians.”
— Bill Wilkins, Director of Economic Development, LDCENY.
